Existing comprehensive search and retrieval systems have been principally designed to provide services for “Information Professionals”, such as professional searchers, librarians, reference desk staff, etc. These information professionals generally have a significant amount of training and experience in drafting complex focused queries for input into these information service systems and are able to understand and use the many features available in the various existing comprehensive search and retrieval systems.
However, with the explosive increase in the quantity, quality, availability, and ease-of-use of Internet-based search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Yahoo Search, Wisenut, etc., there is a new population of users familiar with these Internet based search products who now expect similar ease-of-use, simple query requirements and comprehensive results from all search and retrieval systems. This new population may not necessarily be, and most likely are not, information professionals with a significant amount of training and experience in using comprehensive information search and retrieval systems. The members of this new population are often referred to as “end-users.” The existing comprehensive search and retrieval systems generally place the responsibility on an end-user to define all of the search, retrieval and presentation features and principles before performing a search. This level of complexity is accessible to information professionals, but often not to end-users. Presently, end-users typically enter a few search terms and expect the search engine to deduce the best way to normalize, interpret and augment the entered query, what content to run the query against, and how to sort, organize, and navigate the search results. The end-users expect search results and corresponding document display to be based upon their limited search construction instead of the comprehensive taxonomies upon which information professionals rely when using comprehensive search engines. End-users have grown to expect simplistic queries to produce precise, comprehensive search results, while (not realistically) expecting their searches to be as complete as those run by information professionals using complex queries.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to have an intelligent comprehensive search and retrieval system and method capable of providing an end-user effortless access yet the most relevant, meaningful, up-to-date, and precise search results as quickly and efficiently as possible.